Adjourned Without Date

The snow outside my window hangs as if someone hit pause. A robin with an orange belly rests on the fence post, her head twitching—listening, deciding. The short days might send her south. Or she might stay.

My hands won’t stop trembling. Not from the cold—though the cold has teeth—but from the waiting room at the federal building in Newark. “Recupérate, Sophia,” I tell myself. I practice my English anyway—quietly, under my breath—in case they refuse to speak Spanish today.

If I miss the appointment, they can dismiss my asylum case. If I go, they can take me—hold me, deport me. I will have to keep an eye out for agents. There are so many ways I can be sent back in shame. My body rehearses the humiliation before it happens, as if practice will make it hurt less.

In my heart, in my mind, I believe I will be safe. I must believe that. But my body disbelieves. And my hands keep shaking.

“Protégeme, Cristo mío, mi redentor.” I pray so the flesh will listen.

Timy—my little dog, all ribs and attitude—won’t go near the doors or the windows. He stands in the hallway watching the thin strip of light under the front door with suspicion, as if the draft is something alive that could rush in and drag us both outside. In my head, Timy is Cuban too—suspicious of doors, allergic to authority. “¡Estoy chiflando el mono!” he says with his yelps, shaking himself into a frenzy.

Last year was my first real winter. By the time spring came, I didn’t even notice the cold anymore. I had forgotten the endless warmth of Cuba, a dry baking heat that slowly dried you out and roasted your bones. I had forgotten the big-bellied sun. Soy cubana; de cara al sol.

Here, the cold doesn’t roast. It claims. It settles into your joints and your thoughts. It makes you want permission for things you thought were given on arrival—warmth, safety, a future that isn’t conditional.

On the coffee table, my phone lights up.

MAMI.

The picture loads in pieces, line by line, as if the internet itself has to catch its breath. My mother’s table in Mayari. Rice. Beans. A bottle of oil like a trophy. A carton of eggs arranged like jewelry.

Under the photo she’s typed:

“6,000 pesos por 30 huevos. Suben cada día.”

Six thousand. For thirty eggs. And tomorrow more. Prices change while you’re standing in line. Sometimes you don’t even get to the cashier before the numbers go up again—con libreta o sin libreta.

Timy hops up beside me and presses his warm head into my thigh. His ears are soft. My apartment is cold.

I look down at my hands.

My nails are done—soft color, glossy pink, the kind of pretty that feels like belonging for ten minutes. An extravagance. Unnecessary. Selfish. Every time I catch them in the light, I think of a meal my family could have had if I wasn’t vain, if I didn’t crave small proofs that I’m becoming normal here. Becoming American.

Last week I ordered food when I was sick. A $40 meal. I acted like there is no such thing as hunger. Like I forgot myself. Delivery fees bigger than what I used to spend in Cuba for groceries in an entire week. At the time it seemed impossible to stand at the stove and heat up soup. I told myself: You’re exhausted. You’re allowed.

That is the irony of this place. There is so much. Abundance.

I sign in to Seamless and scroll my Past Orders—too many. I press my thumb into the red icon until it trembles, then tap Delete App and watch it disappear.

The guilt arrives days after the nails. Once it comes, it doesn’t leave.

Timy follows me like a duck. And like an addict, I reinstall Seamless before I can stop myself.

Maybe I’ll be hungry later, coming back from work too tired to stand at the stove. I act like I’ve never gone days with no food and been fine—like a little hunger is fatal.

When did I become so fragile—like one official word could break me?

Across the room, my folder waits on the kitchen counter: appointment letter, ID, receipts, copies, a hotline card from a nonprofit that says IN CASE in friendly print. Newark is only a few miles away, but that does not mean it is safe.

I keep thinking about the questions, an entry in the computer that says I was there, that I complied, that I showed up, that I can keep working and sending money and buying eggs and gifts from a distance. I hate that I want it. I hate that some part of me believes following orders from another government is the same thing as being worthy.

My phone vibrates. A calendar reminder, bright and indifferent.

CHECK-IN APPOINTMENT — NEWARK — 9:00 AM.

The clock clicks and I do what I always do: I count my family.

My mother and father are professors. My sister is a doctor. Words like that should mean stability.

In Cuba they mean you have a title and still borrow money.

When my sister writes me, she never uses dramatic language. She writes like a doctor writes: facts, clipped—emotionless.

But last month she told me this: “They come with gifts now. The ones who cannot pay. One man brought a small wooden horse he carved himself. Another brought a jar of honey. A woman brought a doily. She said her mother made it before she died.”

My sister is not sentimental. She keeps the gifts anyway. Because refusing is a kind of cruelty.

My phone pings.

LILI—my sister.

I brace myself before I open it.

Her voice note begins with the sound of the generator I bought for the house. It sounds like a long-haul truck idling.

“A blackout,” she says. “Again. It’s been six hours.”

Then, in the background, I hear a sound that makes my chest squeeze: my nephew, George.

A high, thin cry that isn’t pain exactly. It’s agitation. It’s the sound of a body trying to regulate itself in a world that won’t decide what it is doing.

“He doesn’t understand,” my sister says. “He wants his cartoons. He wants the game. The lights go and he starts… you know.”

I know. I’ve seen him slap his own head when he can’t find words. I’ve seen him bite his wrist until it leaves a mark. I’ve watched my sister hold him through it with arms that have held too many other people.

“The laptop is still in customs,” she says. “They say it is ‘held.’ They say maybe there is a fee. Maybe it is paperwork. Maybe it is nothing. Maybe it disappears. I don’t know.”

Then she pauses.

“Can you pay something? If I go there, they will ask for money anyway. They always do.”

Her voice stays controlled, but I hear the fatigue from watching my nephew. Not desperation. Not begging. Just disappointment. The anticipation that relief is coming. But it never seems to.

In the kitchen, I stack plates too loudly. I rinse the same spoon twice. I pour soup into the thermos, right up to the brim, and screw the lid on. The motion is muscle memory—my mother, before school, pressing warmth into my hands like a blessing. It’s her recipe. I make coffee; the beans smell like fresh hope.

Timy watches from the doorway, tail still, ears alert. He thinks he can hear the trouble before it snaps its teeth. He’s stubborn, but he loves sleep. By the time I come back he will be sleeping in a little heap.

On the bus to Newark, I keep my tote on my lap like a child. Every bump makes the thermos thump against my hip.

Across the aisle, a young mother holds a toddler in a puffy jacket. The toddler is chewing on a cracker with the seriousness of a priest.

The mother’s coat is too thin for this cold.

The toddler drops the cracker. It shatters on the floor. The mother’s face tightens—the reflex I know: you can’t waste anything.

She looks around, embarrassed, and for a second her eyes meet mine.

I offer her a napkin from my tote without thinking.

“Gracias,” she whispers.

I nod. I don’t add anything. I don’t need another friend. I don’t want connection to become a thread someone can pull. Someone can cut.

But when the bus lurches and her toddler slips, I watch her grip him tighter, and my mind flashes Texas—fluorescent lights, officers, a child lifted like luggage. A sound I can’t forget.

I blink hard and force myself back into Newark.

It’s a few miles.

It might as well be a border.

The federal building lobby smells like overheated air and old coffee. The heat is aggressive, dry, and yet it doesn’t feel warm. It feels like a waiting room with no exit.

A sign near security reads:

NO FOOD OR DRINK BEYOND THIS POINT.

As if soup is contraband. As if warmth is dangerous.

My mouth goes dry.

When it’s my turn, I place my folder in the gray bin. My tote next.

The security guard is a woman with tired eyes and eyebrows that have learned not to react. She gestures.

“Bag.”

I unzip the tote.

Her gaze lands on the thermos.

“What’s that?”

“Sopa,” I say without thinking. “Soup.”

“Open it.”

My fingers are clumsy on the lid. When the seal breaks, steam rises—garlic, oregano, chicken fat. Ajiaco. Cuba in a thermos.

The guard inhales before she can stop herself.Something in her expression softens, quick and private.

“My abuela used to make something like that,” she says quietly.

“Ajiaco,” I say.

She glances at the sign, then at me, then at my folder.

Rules wrestle something human behind her eyes. I screw the lid tight, like I can keep anything from spilling out of my life.

“Take a sip,” she says. “Now. Then I’ll hold it here and you can take it when you leave.”

I stare at her like she’s offered me a miracle.

“Now,” she repeats, briskly, as if mercy can only survive if it pretends to be procedure.

I lift the thermos and sip.

The broth burns my tongue. It’s perfect. It’s stubbornness made edible.

My eyes fill unexpectedly, which annoys me—tears make you visible.

I screw the lid back on and hand the thermos over.

She places it behind the station carefully, like it matters.

“Go,” she says.

I walk through the metal detector feeling like I’ve surrendered my only warmth.

***

Upstairs, the waiting room is rows of chairs and silence. A television plays without sound. People hold folders like flotation devices.

Names are called. Doors open. Doors click shut.

Click.

Click.

Click.

Each click is a second.

I try not to look at the officers’ belts. I try not to look at the door too hard, as if staring can summon disaster.

My phone vibrates. I don’t check it.

A man across from me bounces his knee. A woman whispers into her phone in a language I don’t recognize. A teenager picks at his nails until the skin around them reddens.

I think of my own nails, smooth and painted, untouched by fear.

A sharp guilt rises in my throat.

Then my name arrives in an unfamiliar mouth.

“Suh-FEE-uh… Al-VAR-ez.”

I stand on legs that feel separate from my body.

The officer leads me down a hallway that smells like carpet cleaner and winter coats drying. He opens a door.

“Sit.”

The room is small. Desk, chairs, computer monitor. Fluorescent lights that make everyone look slightly ill.

He types. Clicks. Scrolls.

I hold my folder on my lap and keep my face neutral, the way I’ve practiced in mirrors.

Finally, he clears his throat.

“Ms. Alvarez,” he says, not looking at me, “your case is being… held.”

Held.

The word lands like a hand over my mouth.

“Held?” I repeat.

He nods at the screen. “Adjourned without date,” he says. “New guidance.”

Paused. Held. Words that mean not now. Words that can stretch into years.

“When will it—” I begin, and my voice cracks like a child’s “—resume?”

“You’ll receive something in the mail,” he says.

Mail. When?

“And my work permit?” I ask quickly. “It expires. I have to renew—”

“That’s separate,” he says.

Separate.

In Texas, separate was a word that made my stomach turn.

Here, separate is how you take a life: one form, one year, one promise. One thing after another.

I swallow hard.

“Am I allowed to leave?” I ask. Do I need permission to be free? I do.

He finally looks at me, recognizing me as a person in the same room he is in, for the first time.

“Yes, you are free to go.”

He slides a paper across the desk: a form letter with my name printed neatly at the top.

The letters swim, then lock into place.

PENDING. FURTHER REVIEW. ADJOURNED WITHOUT DATE.

I tuck it into my folder like it’s a bruise.

I stand.

I nod once, because nodding is what you do when you can’t afford a scene. I do not know if I can control my eyes.

I walk out of the room.

The hallway feels longer on the way back.

In my chest, something hollows out.

Not panic.

Not tears.

Just a quiet, terrifying emptiness: the feeling of being paused mid-air. Perched and waiting.

***

Downstairs, the lobby seems louder, though nothing has changed.

I walk toward the exit, toward the security station where my thermos waits like a small promise.

And then I see her.

The young mother from the bus.

She’s standing near a pillar with her toddler asleep on her shoulder. Two officers are speaking to her. Not shouting. Not touching. Just… positioning. Blocking her path with their bodies.

Her face is tight. Her eyes dart.

I feel Texas surge up in my blood.

I remind myself that I am invisible.

Walk past. Head down. Protect the fragile thing I still have: my presence in this country.

But my case is held. My future is paused. Am I safe? Am I in danger? My feet keep moving. Then they stop.

The mother looks around with the same panic I saw in that little girl’s face back then.

Something inside me rises. I step forward before I can talk myself out of it.

“Hi,” I say too brightly, too American, then switch to Spanish. “¿Necesita ayuda?”

Her shoulders sag with relief so fast it hurts to watch. “No entiendo,” she whispers. “Me dicen—no sé.”

One officer turns his head toward me. “You with her?”

“No,” I say. “We were on the bus together. She dropped her kid’s cracker. I gave her a napkin.”

The officer blinks, as if he wasn’t expecting a story this small.

I lift my folder slightly—not as surrender, but as fact. “I had an appointment,” I add. “I’m leaving.”

The officers exchange a glance.

The mother’s toddler shifts, still asleep, warm and heavy on her shoulder.

I pull the hotline card from my folder—the one that says IN CASE—and hold it out.

“Call this,” I whisper in Spanish. “Now. Put it on speaker. I can translate.”

Her hands tremble as she dials.

The phone rings.

Once.

Twice.

Behind the security station, the tired-eyed guard watches. Her face does something complicated. Recognition, maybe. Or a decision.

Someone answers.

“Immigration assistance line—how can we help you?”

I exhale like I’ve been holding my breath for a year. “Hi,” I say. “We need Spanish. I can interpret.”

The officers shift, impatient. The call continues. The mother’s voice steadies with each sentence.

The guard at security clears her throat loudly—too loudly—and one of the officers glances in her direction as if reminded of cameras, of supervisors, of the fact that people are watching.

After a few minutes, the officers step back. Not retreating, exactly. Just… loosening.

The mother’s knees wobble. She leans against the pillar.

I keep translating until the person on the hotline gives her next steps and asks if she is safe for now.

“For now,” the mother says, and her voice breaks on the words.

The call ends.

The mother looks at me like she can breathe again. “Gracias,” she whispers.

I nod, because nodding is what I do when I don’t trust my own voice.

“Vamos,” I say, gesturing toward the exit. “Vamos afuera.”

***

At security, the guard returns my thermos without a word. When her fingers brush mine, she gives the smallest nod, a silent go.

Outside, the winter air slaps us.

She sighs. “Si me separaran de mi bebé…”

I pull her into me. “Abrázala fuerte. No la sueltes nunca.”

Hold her tight. Never let her go.

I pull out my phone.

A new message from Lili.

Customs wants a fee. If not, they keep it.

The laptop is stuck too.

I call my mother. “Mami,” I say, and my voice wobbles. “No estoy bien.” I’m not okay.

“Dime,” she says.

And I do. I tell her I am adjourned without date.

My mother doesn’t say it will be fine. She doesn’t lie to me.

“Estoy contigo,” she says. I’m with you.

I hold the phone to my ear until it hurts, listening to the line hum—held between us.

I wish her here. With me. I wish all things to become unstuck.

“Voy a seguir, mamá. Te lo prometo.” I will keep going, mama. I promise.